Learning by experimenting

What is "learning by experimenting"? It simply means to learn to do the right thing by practicing, by failing, and by re-enacting.

I am sure we all have experimented with our lives as an infant, as a kid, as a young man, as an adult, and as an old guy. However, the experiments we do as an infant or a kid have some kind of strength and vigor. For example, I vividly remember those days when I bumped into the sharp edges of the table bruising my head, swallowing a ball-bearing while playing with it laying on the ground and plugging a iron rod into an electrical socket holding the rod with bare hands and getting electric shock. Things that seem not only dangerous but also silly, when I think of them today. The reason for such relentless exploration might be the lack-of-knowledge in how, what and why of things combined with the persistent check of my parents to never-ever-try-to-do-that. That was time when I had a fervent zeal to explore the nature around me. The zeal persisted as I grew, but only scarcely.

As I grew into an adult I acquired knowledge about many things, knowledge that acted more as a curse than a boon. This very knowledge gave me enough information to analyze my actions, analysis that destabilized me when I was on a certain course, made me feel insecure about the direction I choose or threw me into state of complacency or utter confusion. As a result, my life turned out to be stereotypical that lacked creative activity or enthusiasm. My actions were easily guessed and always bore a sense of security. On the other hand, my body became less receptive to absorbing nature around me. Thus, today, I do not have courage nor will to experience the world around me.

Anyways, my point is that the zeal to explore things around us will lead to experimentation and the results obtained in the process of experimentation are much more powerful than those obtained from any conventional learning process.

I will give you few examples from my own life -
1) Let's see how we learn to "talk over the phone". Many times we try to learn phone-sense by observing other people around us how they do it, by reading books on phone etiquette or by acquiring knowledge from friends, family in the best practices. With out a speck of doubt, we follow such practices all the time. Despite the knowledge we acquire from several sources, we tend to grasp more from what we learn by experimenting. Even today, we may still be working on attaining the best results, but then we are still experimenting.
2) Similar is the case with driving a car- we had to test our ways before we conclude the best that suits us, irrespective of all the info we get from outside sources. People tell us not to speed on a highway, but we do it anyway. We are on a constant look out for a cop, while cruising at a 90 mph speed on a 60 mph speed limit, but then again we are trying a new way.
3) And how about our private (personal) life? Parents, from their long life experience, caution us about the various pitfalls of a certain path. Yet, most of the times, we tend to get caught in the trap by doing what they did not intend us to do. Again, I would argue that we are experimenting and we would ultimately discover the best way of doing a given task. We may face obstacles along the way, but those obstacles only make the win more fruitful.

Alrite - my intention in writing this article is to make a point that there exists NO SINGLE way of doing a certain task. Of course, there can be good and bad things about doing it one way, but that judgment has to be left to the discretion of the performer - you or me or some other person. When our parents, family, friends, colleagues or bosses remember this statement and let us perform the tasks and explore the benefits and drawbacks, I believe we could generate tremendous amount of knowledge, which can enable us to make better decisions in life.

So, don't nag about the actions of the other person - let him/her just do it. Eventually he or she will find the best way.

Now, this statement holds good both for personal and professional life.

Why the name "zealously zesty"

Most of you might wonder why I choose this name for my blog. Here are the three reasons for selecting the name for my blog:

1) Meaning:
I wanted the name to portray my personality not only from the content in the blog but also from the name of blog. The words "zeal and "zest" convey to the reader a feeling of passion, eagerness, and accomplishment. These words, on the other hand, clearly buttress my motto, which is "go for it, when you know it is right". (When you have zeal, be zesty)

In any case, the dictionary definitions for the words are:
Zeal = a feeling of strong eagerness; excessive fervor to do something.
Zest = Enthusiastic enjoyment; add herbs or spices to.

2) Modern, trendy and good sounding:
The words - zest and zeal - are kind of trendy. They are not banal and have a beautiful meaning. In addition, both the words start with same letter, z, and sound similar.

3) Availability of blog-name:
Of course, I had to take the availability of blog into consideration. "zeal and zest" is a name that was available and I grabbed it.

Even today, I love this name. I hope you do the same.

Day full of emotions

Yesterday was not a very happy day for me. My brother moved to a new place where he has his new job. He and I lived in the same apartment for more than 4 years. I do not remember how I felt when he first moved in to my apartment years ago, but am sure the feeling might have been unpleasant. If I have to guess how I felt, I would have thought that he was intruding my privacy and infringing my rights - Haha.

Well, that's then. The feeling was entirely different when he left yesterday. My heart was filled with gloom, sadness and disappointment. I am psychologically down - I know he will be permanently gone, be settled in the new place and be a visitor-only to my place.

Yes, I missed him and will do so. I will miss those times when we compete early in the morning for the restroom, miss those disagreements over TV channels, miss the agreements over lunch/dinner, miss the get-togethers and fondue parties with (mostly his) friends and colleagues, and of-course miss the discussions about people at work place (he had many interesting stories working for a big company that has lots and lots of women). Above all, I will miss his cooking expertise that allowed him to cook all kinds of exotic dishes.

Well, that's the way of life. This sad moment will fade too. I know that my brain will easily replace its cells that contain "brother-leaving" information with some other information soon. Until then, I have to hold on to my emotions and be strong.

Bravo!!

learning by observing

I have these weird concepts creep into my mind and form a constant place in it. For example, I believe in the concept of "learning by experimenting", which I will describe in some other blog. I will talk about "Learning by observing" in this blog.

Seldom do I find time to read a book, listen to a seminar or watch a program on television to get answers to common questions such as how does a radio work, why is the sky blue, how do fish swim, etc. The answers are readily available on the internet or in a library. But, I still will-not / cannot spend few minutes to find answers. Instead, I observe people, nature and surroundings to get some knowledge. I believe in the power of learning by this process, a power that does not exist in other conventional ways of learning - from a book, TV, etc. (do you see a Newton in me? Haha.)

Here is an example -
I found by observing other people and nature that you can help your face look glorious (or glamorous) by doing few simple things such as:

1) Expose a larger area of the face:
The more the area visible the better the chances of making your face look great. For instance, I clean shaved my mustache, shortened my side-whiskers, and changed my hair style a bit to expose more of my forehead.

2) Keep your face free from (black) hair:
Black objects absorb light and black hair does the same. Thus, if you have a black beard or black-heads you better get rid of them for a better looking face.

3) Keep the edges sharp:
Keep your nose blade straight and sharp. How you do that? Massage your nose at least 10 seconds twice a day (while shower). Exercise also helps. Keep the periphery of your nostrils and lips sharp. (Blunt objects do not get that much attention)

4) Keep your face moist, so light gets reflected that makes your face shine.

Just few tips, if at all they make sense and help you. These are my personal observations, bearing no support from any published theory. They might be entirely wrong, but I am publishing anyway just to dole out my ideas.

I guess I have rambled enough on this concept. It took me whole 30 minutes to write this not-at-all-tested concept. Enjoy!!

Goodbye!

Quote for the day

"If your mother ain't happy, you ain't no happy" - unknown. This quote struck right on the center of my brain.

You surely heard about unconditional-love and associate the concept with mother and mother only. No one in this entire universe would usher love that has no strings attached. Mother is such a person. At times I get emotional about the affection and love I get from my mom. Fear fills my heart at the thought of whether I could ever give her something similar in return. If my mother wishes something from me, that would be for me to be happy and lead a trouble free life.

Back to the quote - if a person makes his or her mother sad, that person is leading a tragic life. The quote makes perfect sense when given a little thought. It also made me introspect several of my actions in life and whether I ever caused pain to my mother during these few years on earth. Unfortunately a resounding "yes" was the answer.

What can be done to avert a similar situation in the future? I will have to strive hard to be a better person, learn from past actions and keep in mind that I do things that please my mom. When she is happy, I am happy.

Good deal.

Trying to stick to my resolution

It was easy to make a resolution, which was to write a blog a day and in 10 minutes. Putting into action, though, is extremely difficult.

After a few days of cajoling my heart, I sat down today at 10.32 PM to write this blog.

Today is Monday. I had a nice weekend during which I visited one of my friend's brother's graduation ceremony. Interestingly, the school from which this guy graduated happens to be the school my brother attended and graduated. So, you can imagine the flow of those past memories as I drive along the interstate I-20, US Hwy 69, and the local roads. It's almost after 2 years I visited the place. Did not find any significant changes anywhere, though the students were different. The affinity I had towards my brother's friends was lacking, though I can attribute the lack to many other factors.

Anyways, it was a great trip - relaxing, exhilarating and one that brought my memories afresh.

I asked my buddy to send my some pics from the trip. As soon as I get some, I will attach them to this post. But, for now sayanora. It's 10.41 PM. One more minute to make editing/corrections. Alrite.

One post, to be written in 10 mins, a day - new resolution

Here's a thought - "How about composing a post, reading it for accuracy and grammar and publishing it - all in 10 minutes". Sounds interesting and exciting. The problem is that 10 minutes is too less of a time to think, write, proof-read and publish a post.

But, so be it. At least I will publish one post a day. At least I will think, write and read something each day!

Lately its become difficult for me to blog because I do not find that 30 - 45 minute time slot that is required to publish a decent post. My last post was on Jan 27, which is more than six months ago.

So as not to repeat this big gap between posts, I decided firmly that I would write one blog a day and that too in 10 minutes only. The result of this firm decision may be posts that are illogical, grammatically incorrect or poor. I don't care about the quality of the posts that much. At least after a few months, years or decades (if I stick to this firm decision), I can see myself as an avid writer who has lots of creativity and energy.

It's almost 10 minutes since I started typing this post. Now I got to proof-read and publish it.

Let's see how this works. I will keep you updated on this aspect. In fact you can gauge my progress by skimming through the dates of the several posts I make. Way to go!!